Theresa May has sidestepped questions over her response to
the Grenfell Tower disaster after facing renewed criticism of her reaction to
the tragedy.

In an interview on BBC’s newsnight on Friday, the prime
minister said the fire which has claimed the lives of at least 30 people with
dozens more missing was “absolutely horrifying” and had been a “terrifying
experience” for those affected.

But she sidestepped questions over whether she had failed to
judge the public mood.

The interviewer, Emily Maitlis, suggested that there was a
need for the public to hear her say something had gone badly wrong and that the
government accepted responsibility, but May said: “Something terrible has
happened.

“This is an
absolutely awful fire that took place. People have lost their lives, people
have had their homes destroyed, they have fled for their lives with absolutely
nothing.”

Asked if she had misread the public anger, she replied:
“What I have done since this incident took place is, first of all, ensure that
the public services had the support they need in order to be able to do the job
they were doing in the immediate aftermath.”

Pressed again on whether she had failed to understand the
anger felt by the public, she said: “This was a terrible tragedy that took
place. People have lost their lives and others have lost everything, all their
possessions, their home and everything.

“What we are doing is putting in place the support that will
help them.

“But it is a terrible tragedy. I have heard horrifying
stories from the fire brigade, from police and from victims themselves who were
in that tower but also from other local residents, some of whom of course have
not been able to go back to their homes either.

“What I’m now absolutely focused on is ensuring that we get
that support on the ground.

“Government is making
money available, we are ensuring we are going to get to the bottom of what
happened, we will ensure that people are rehoused, but we need to make sure
that that actually happens.”

May said the public inquiry into the fire would take place
“as soon as possible” and insisted the government had acted on previous
warnings about tower block safety by a coroner.

George Eaton ✔
@georgeeaton

Theresa May really needed to break from her robotic
interview style there - didn't happen. #newsnight

11:55 PM - 16 Jun 2017

103 103
Retweets 223 223 likes

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“The government has taken action on the recommendations of
the coroner’s report,” she insisted.

Asked how residents in other high rise blocks would be able
to sleep at night, May said: “The government is doing everything in its power
to ensure that people are safe. We have identified those buildings and now and
over the weekend people are going in and inspecting those buildings.”

The prime minister’s performance was met with scorn on
social media but also by once-friendly media outlets such as the Daily Mail,
which panned her interview showing on its website under the headline “Maybot
malfunction”.

Anita Singh ✔
@anitathetweeter

Theresa May just repeating the same phrases over and over
again with blind panic in her eyes #Newsnight

11:52 PM - 16 Jun 2017

19 19 Retweets 43 43 likes

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Earlier, May met a group of victims, residents, volunteers
and community leaders at a church close to the scene of the horrific blaze, and
visited survivors in hospital.

But the visits, which took place more than 48 hours after
the devastating fire broke out, have done little to quell the growing anger
over the way she has dealt with the tragedy.

As she left St Clement’s Church following a visit lasting
less than an hour, the PM faced cries of “coward” and “shame on you”. One woman
wept saying it was because May had declined to speak to anyone outside the
meeting.

Material used in the cladding that covered the Grenfell
Tower was the cheaper, more flammable version of the two available options, an
investigation of the supply chain has confirmed.

Omnis Exteriors manufactured the aluminium composite
material (ACM) used in the cladding, a company director, John Cowley, confirmed
to the Guardian.

He also said Omnis had been asked to supply Reynobond PE
cladding, which is £2 cheaper per square metre than the alternative Reynobond
FR, which stands for “fire resistant” to the companies that worked on
refurbishing Grenfell Tower.

White cladding on
Grenfell Tower. The supplier said it had been asked for Reynobond PE rather
than FR – fire resistant

“We supplied
components for a system created by the design and build team on that project,”
said Cowley.

Harley Facades confirmed it had installed the panels bought
from Omnis in the work it performed on Grenfell Tower.

Omnis sold ACM cladding to Harley Facades, which was
responsible for installing it.

Construction firm Rydon Maintenance was the lead contractor
on the project but sub-contracted elements of the work to smaller companies,
including Harley.

Omnis Exteriors describes itself as a “leading UK
manufacturer and supplier of exterior building products and systems”. Its
website states: “With almost 400 multi-storey projects completed, you know that
you are in good hands.”

The website also says Omnis manufactures cladding at a
workshop in St Helens and has supplied dozens of building projects around the
country.

It reported a profit of £1.2m last year, the same year in
which the ACM it supplied was installed on Grenfell Tower.

The company also paid a dividend of £950,000 to its sole
shareholder, an investment group specialising in construction companies called
Xerxes Equity.

The chairman of Xerxes and its largest shareholder is the
corporate grandee Tony Rice, who is a former chief executive of the telecoms
multinational Cable & Wireless and is also a trustee of the housing charity
Shelter.

German construction companies have been banned from using
plastic-filled cladding, such as Reynobond PE, on towers more than 22 metres
high since the 1980s when regulations were brought in to improve fire safety at
residential blocks.

Concerns that the panels could exacerbate the spread of
fires led authorities to allow them only on buildings that can be reached by
the fire brigade using fully-extended ladders from the ground. Taller buildings
require panels with a more fire-resistant core and separate staircases for
people to use if evacuation becomes necessary.

Frankfurt’s fire chief, Reinhard Ries, said he was appalled
at the fire at Grenfell Tower and said tighter fire-safety rules for tower
blocks in Germany meant that a similar incident could not happen there. US
building codes also restrict the use of metal-composite panels without flame-retardant
cores on buildings above 15 metres.

Germany is deemed to have some of the most stringent fire
regulations in the world. High-rise tower blocks are common, particularly in
former communist parts of the country, where they dominated new-build housing
for decades. In Berlin and elsewhere, the austere blocks have become
fashionable places to live, in part because of a housing shortage and the high
cost of accommodation.

Berlin’s fire chief, Wilfried Gräfling, said the London fire
made it clear that fire regulations should be tightened further with only
mineral materials used in cladding panels. “We will try to persuade lawmakers
that flammable material should no longer be allowed to be used as an insulant,”
he told Der Spiegel. “Only mineral material that can’t burn, ensuring that it’s
no longer possible for a fire to spread via the cladding,.”

The speed at which the fire spread at Grenfell Tower has led
to intense speculation that external cladding panels made from aluminium sheets
with a flammable polyethylene core may have fuelled the fire that tore through
the block in the early hours of Wednesday morning. But the investigation into
the tragedy will look at scores of other factors that could have contributed to
the blaze, including the proper installation of fire barriers between the
cladding on each floor and any holes left after the recent refurbishment
through which fire could have spread.

In the UK there are no regulations requiring the use of
fire-retardant material in cladding used on the exterior of tower blocks and
schools. But the Fire Protection Association (FPA), an industry body, has been
pushing for years for the government to make it a statutory requirement for
local authorities and companies to use only fire-retardant material. Jim
Glocking, technical director of the FPA, said it had “lobbied long and hard”
for building regulations on the issue to be tightened, but nothing had
happened.

On Thursday police launched a criminal inquiry into the fire
at the 24-storey building. At least 30 people died in the blaze, though police
expect the figure to rise substantially. Of the injured, 30 remain in hospital
with 15 in a critical condition.